Design-Led Thinking @ Catalyst Foundry

I co-created and led Catalyst Foundry, an internal incubator at Verizon, where I worked with a team of proven engineers, design and product experts across a portfolio of projects simultaneously in a startup studio model. I implemented the ideation framework and agile development process for a team of 25 that resulted in launch of 5+ seed-funded products in the first year. While at Catalyst Foundry and Verizon, our team was awarded more than 20 out of 25+ patents filed.

My focus was leading product design to explore and prioritize dozens of different ideas via rapid design sprints. Inspired by best practices evangelized by Google Ventures, IDEO and Stanford d.School, I drove a process of early concept validation through user stories, design prototyping, research interviews and analysis. I also worked with each idea creator or product manager to coalesce a concept into a compelling story and pitch presentation.

Once we were on to “something”, the real fun began: we iterated design, build and test — launched, measured and gathered feedback from users.

We explored concepts in areas including:

Productivity

Dynamic Music and Video

Social Gaming

Voice AI and Messaging Bots

Early Education Tools

Topic-based Conversations

Crowd-sourced Sentiment Analysis

Augmented Reality

Just a few of our products:

Outta: Make & Discover Virtual Spaces

Just in time for augmented reality to hit mainstream, Outta lets you add filters, animated stickers, photos, GIFs, and messages in the real world to share with friends and others.